Well, the Texas Senate has passed a law banning texting while driving, but the ban has yet to become law at this point. Instead it has been sent back to the House to approve a change in verbiage that is actually a significant change. The bill’s author, Senator Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat from Laredo, included reading texts, (or anything), in the band. The changes to the bill would make it a crime to write or send a text while the vehicle is moving, but not specifically to read them. Senator Zaffifini was not pleased with making the ban less restrictive, but wanted the process to go forward despite the change. Now this is going to strike some readers as ridiculous, but I have to say that, at this point, I’m not for it!

On the surface it seems like a slam dunk. We all have stories we could tell of people becoming involved in accidents because they were trying to text while driving. I certainly don’t deny that it’s extremely unwise. But the question for me is; where does the legislation end? Should we pass a law that says you can’t tune the radio and drive? Or how about eat and drive? Maybe drink and drive, (and no I don’t mean alcohol, I mean anything). Cherry lime-aids are particularly dangerous if one goes rooting around the bottom of the cup looking for cherries when the drink is gone.  This seems like more nanny- state legislation to me. And for some reason, we in Texas are really susceptible to peer- pressure. If a big fancy state like New York has it, we should too! It’s the same thinking that brought that ludicrous smoking ban to Tyler.

No one can possibly argue that texting and driving are, two things that go great together; nor is smoking good for you, nor is eating too much red meat! Hey! And you know what? Sitting too close to the TV is hard on the eyes! Oh and it’s a bad idea to swim after eating! Maybe pools should be held liable if I cramp up while swimming. Government, local, state, or national, does not exist to protect us from every risk. But we have lost the ability to distinguish what is unwise, from what is unlawful, and given a few years, we’re all going to be so mired down in petty rules and regulations we’re not going to be able to turn around without some do-gooder or other handing us a ticket.

“So what would you do? HUH?!”  Well I don’t know… For starters, I’ve no opposition to raising the driving age a bit. I’d wager that a large portion of the offenders are young people anyway. Surely not all, but most I expect. But maybe we as citizens just need to be more responsible. I understand the good intentions here. Honestly I’d probably be hard pressed to find anyone who defends the right to text and drive. But at some point we’ve got to stop trying to legislate common sense.